In 1992 the Treaty of
Maastricht turned the European Common Market on its head, and replaced the free
association of sovereign nations cooperating to achieve their mutual interestas
envisioned in the Treaty of Rome of 1957, signed by France’s Schumann, Italy’s
De Gasperi, and Germany’s Konrad Adenauer, Catholics allwith a European Union
whose unlimited norms take precedence over national laws.

Today, after a gradual and
meticulous 20-year-long build-up, the nations of Europe find themselves chained
to a convoluted document that goes by the name of the Lisbon Treaty. Premised
less on its loosely defined common heritage than on its rigidly regulated
common currency, this treaty and its accompanying Charter of Rights provide the
basis for authoritarian forays into ethics and conscience rights that were
never supposed to be the business of legislators.

It is abundantly clear nowtoo latethat the faithful would
have done well to heed Pope John Paul II’s reiterated call to insist, indeed to
fight, for a mention of Europe’s
Christian heritage in the European Constitution (see his 2003 apostolic
exhortation Ecclesia in Europa). Had
Europe’s historical Christian roots been acknowledged in the EU’s founding
documents, as John Paul pleaded they be, we would now have a solid foundation
on which to base our resistance to media and political pressure to adopt laws
that fly in the face of Europe’s identity and tradition.

Although the omission was
attributed to the will of the French, led by Valery Giscard D’Estaing, to
impose secularism, as celebrated in the French Revolution, on the nascent new
Europe, there was clearly never any resolve among the 106 men who set about
drawing up the Constitution to do things any differently. This is why the Holy
Father’s appeal led to a change that may actually have made matters worse. At
the outset the preamble to the Constitution contained a reference to Europe’s
Greek and Roman heritage, and then jumped past some thousand years to include
the principles of the so-called Age of Enlightenment. Rather than filling in the void between
antiquity and the 18th century with a token reference to Christianity, the
compromise decision, in “fairness” to Christians, eliminated even the broadest
of specifics. Thus the current version of the preamble to the Lisbon Treaty (as
the Constitution was re-named after receiving a thumbs-down verdict in the
French and Dutch referendums) gives brief and equal credit to a generic
religion and to humanism, in a half-sentence referencing “the cultural,
religious, and humanist inheritance of Europe.”

Hungary’s stand

Given the determination
with which the secularists in power have refused to let any mention of Christianity
slip into the European Union’s founding document, one can understand what an
intolerable slap in the face it was when, in 2011, Hungary replaced its
Communist-dictated Constitution of 1947 with a new one that not only honors its
historical Christian roots but also includes an explicit defense of natural law
ethics.

The new Fundamental Law is
everything a central bureaucracy devoted to secularizing the culture abhors. It
recognizes:

- Christianity
as the basic religion of the Hungarian people (while ensuring complete freedom
of religion);

- the
protection of life from the moment of conception (although the law still allows
for abortion);

- the
family based on marriage between a man and a woman (although the law allows for
same- sex civil unions);

- the
responsibility before God of the Members of Parliament who approve the
Constitution;

- the
ethnic basis of the nation, with safeguards for the rights of resident
minorities, implicitly refuting the utopian concept that defines a nation on
the basis of its prevailing political ideology;

- the
prohibition of eugenics.

Hungary’s new constitution
begins, “God bless the Hungarians,” which is followed by an acknowledgement of
St. Stephen as the founder of the Hungarian, or Magyar, state as “a part of
Christian Europe.” The preamble further celebrates “the role of Christianity in
preserving nationhood,” with a nod to “the various religious traditions” of the
country.

Several lines in the
opening section are dedicated to setting history straight, honoring the heroic
anti-Soviet rebellion of 1956 and claiming continuity with the constitution
that existed before foreign
interference temporarily replaced it with the Communist charter adopted in 1949.
The Hungarian government at that time was headed by Matyas Rakosi, self-identified
as “Stalin’s best Hungarian disciple” and the executioner of 2,000 political
opponents and jailer of 100,000 more (among whom was Cardinal József
Mindszenty).

While fundamental EU valuesdemocracy,
unity, solidarityare related to the structure and prerogatives of the State, the
Hungarian constitution repeatedly refers to personhood. “We hold that human
existence is based on human dignity…. We hold that the family and the nation
constitute the principal framework of our coexistence, and that our fundamental
cohesive values are fidelity, faith, and love.”

While EU documents repeatedly
describe how rights are conferred by
them on citizens and minorities, Hungary’s Fundamental Law, like the US
Declaration of Independence, recognizes those rights as subsisting inalienably
in the person as such.

As someone whose national
constitution starts with “Italy is a republic founded on labor,” I particularly
appreciate the more thoughtful Hungarian wording, linking labor to personhood:
“the strength of community and the honor of each person are based on labor, an achievement of the human mind.”

Obviously drawing on
experience of the intrusive central planning of Moscow and recognizing similar
methods by the central planners in Brussels, the Hungarian charter also
carefully pre-empts, one by one, all the possible incursions of political
correctness on the national interest. Could the problem be a lack of “diversity”?
The charter points out that national culture itself “is a rich contribution to
the diversity of European unity.” Worried about the perils of nationalism? “We
respect the freedom and culture of other nations, and shall strive to cooperate
with every nation of the world.” Will Hungary commit to European unity, one of
the conceptual mainstays of communist internationalism, useful in isolating
peripheral upstarts? Of course it will, but in order “to enhance the liberty,
prosperity, and security of European nations.” What about cooperation? By all
means, but not as the much-invoked concept of mutually limiting
“interdependence,” but rather as a necessary component of freedom.

Is it any wonder that ever
since Hungary’s 2010 elections awarded the Christian-inspired Fidesz Party an
iron-clad two-thirds majority in Parliament, news about Hungary has started
filling the media, alleging to the world at large that the government was
persecuting minorities, shutting down the press, and intimidating ordinary
citizens? Authoritarian, chauvinistic, homophobic, extremist, intolerant, and
discriminatory are only some of the slurs that have been used against the
Hungarians.

Hungary is not the first
member state to experience the methods used by the European Union to strong-arm
national governments; economic dictates, juridical threats, and fines and
negative propaganda in heavy proportions, aiming to instigate dissatisfaction
among the people, are enough to cripple any resolve. Prime Minister Viktor Orban,
who says he was schooled in confronting the bullying of central planners under
the Communist regime, has tabled long negotiations with Brussels and reached
some compromises, finding new objections, put forward as “concerns,” constantly
surfacing in the place of old.

“We have to be aware that life in the EU
political arena won’t be easy for us,” Prime Minister Orban said to the Wall Street Journal in a recent
interview. “On some basic principles, we think very differently. The question
is, can we live together in the same political framework with people who have
such different convictions?”

“The mainstream of European political
thinking today is motivated by the notion of progress,” he continued. “They
believe there is a target for development. We believe we are living as human
beings created by God. We don’t think
there is some target for European history.”

“Mainstream
European political thinking is that we should abandon our roots. Roots are
considered the enemies of freedom. But without roots we are lost. It’s a question
of individual liberty, Christian values, of nation and religious life. The
mainstream says our approach is not a modern, European one. That is not a
discussion. We are probably in a minority in the European arena at the moment.
But the values and traditions we are defending are European ones. We are ready
to discuss these points, but not in a way where the mainstream defines what is
modern or European.”

About the Author

Alessandra Nucci

Alessandra Nucci is an Italian author and journalist.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative and inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.